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Thorncrown Chapel will always be remembered as a masterpiece. This small elegant chapel in the woods, with its lacework of trusses, is a metaphor for its place — a forest within a forest. Like any great spiritual space, Thorncrown makes a symphony of daylight. The ordered complexity of the structure refracts light in ever-changing ways.

In his chapels, Fay Jones proved himself a master builder, a term that is becoming less applicable to famous architects these days. He knew how to make buildings and knew intuitively what buildings could do. He liked to think of himself as a cathedral builder born 500 years too late — and like Filippo Brunelleschi, he was not only tremendously inventive — from form to detail — but also steeped in the knowledge of how to make it happen on the building site.

I last visited Fay and his wife Gus last spring in their home. I'll never forget the look in Fay's eyes when we greeted — I knew he had been struggling with great physical challenges and I was surprised and delighted to see how animated he looked. He still had the fire of excitement in his eyes. He was drawing again, incessantly producing sketches and abstract designs, and his hand was steadier than it had been ten years earlier.

In that last visit to the home he built as a young architect, I was reminded of the beauty his early houses. For me, these are the most wonderful of his buildings — the simple grace of their spaces — intimate yet complex enough to enrich but not overpower the experience of living in them. Each is a synthesis of space, light, and detail that pictures or words can't begin to describe.

One cannot remember Fay without Gus — his partner and wife who was always at his side. Their deep dedication to each other was an inspiration for all who encountered them. One got the feeling that they were part of a whole — in a tender dance together through life — and that one couldn't fully flourish without the other.

Fay always reverently referred to his mentor and friend as "Mr. Wright." Those of us lucky enough to work under his guiding hand will warmly remember him simply as "Fay" — a humble genius who showed us the potential of an architecture of integrity to embellish its place in the world and where he hoped we might, in his words, think our best thoughts.

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Michael Cockram is a former employee of Fay Jones. He is now an adjunct assistant professor of architecture at the University of Oregon and director of the Italy Field School Program.

Thorncrown Chapel was voted the "Best Building of the 1980s" by the American Institute of Architects. Image: Fay Jones Papers. Used with permission from Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries, Fayetteville Ridge skylight of the Pinecote Pavilion. Photo: Michael Cockram Nave of Sky Rose Chapel, Los Angeles, by E. Fay Jones. Photo: Michael Cockram In Sky Rose Chapel, the cross bracing's "discontinuous connector" was declared by author Ed Allen as the "best architectural detail of the 20th century." Photo: Michael Cockram   Click on thumbnail images to view full-size pictures.